The Meaning of Struggle in Islām

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al-Salāmu ʿalaykum and welcome to Episode 60 of the Middle Ground Podcast. The following is a short talk I gave after Fajr Prayer on the meaning of struggle and the importance of making struggle meaningful.

Allāh says in the Qur’ān:

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنُ إِنَّكَ كَادِحٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ كَدْحًا فَمُلَـٰقِيهِ

فَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَـٰبَهُۥ بِيَمِينِهِۦ

فَسَوْفَ يُحَاسَبُ حِسَابًا يَسِيرًا

وَيَنقَلِبُ إِلَىٰٓ أَهْلِهِۦ مَسْرُورًا

“O mankind! You are indeed laboring restlessly towards your Lord, and will meet Him. Therefore the one who has his book handed to him from his right-side will have an easy reckoning and will be returned to his people, happy.”

Imam Marc focused in particular on two terms in this Sūrah:

• striving (kadḥ) and
• how the striving through those difficulties will turn us over to “our people” (inqilāb) in the Hereafter.

“There are people that have never met us, and that are there waiting for us, and—in shā’ Allāh—by Allah’s mercy and His faḍl, if we arrive in that way, we have people that will be the happiest people that will ever want to see us.”